Thoughts on crises: China

The world is currently facing a number of crises with a range of severity, all the way up to the existential crises of climate change.

A number of these are getting attention (not necessarily with an effective outcome), including the climate change crisis, the civil war in Syria, the refugee (they’re not just migrants!) crisis, the massive damage being done by the USA’s 45^th President, the risks around North Korea, the growth of Chinese soft power, and so on. Other crises are being discussed, but lack effective action as yet (for instance, underemployment).

There have been a few attempts to highlight other crises (for instance, this: http://news.care.org/article/suffering-in-silence-iii/), and I’d like to add to those by writing a little about some crises I consider either under-acknowledged or ineffectually addressed at the moment.

Those are:

the genocide against the Rohingya;

the humanitarian crisis in Yemen;

the growing military threat nominally associated with China; and

the growing military threat nominally associated with Russia

I was going to put all of these into a single article, but it started getting unwieldy, so I’ll do them one at a time. 

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So let’s consider the growing military threats to the world nominally associated with China.

I’ve read quite a bit locally about China’s re-rise – and she used to be quite a world power before the West violently forced opium use and addiction upon her. Not only that, but she has a history of development in many ways – P. C. Chang, China’s (pre-Communist) representative to the group which developed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights often reminded other participants of China’s long history on human rights matters, and, in response to UNESCO’s world-wide survey of matters which are accepted as being a human right, Mary Ann  Glendon, in "A World  Made  New" (Random House, 2002, ISBN 978-0679463108), writes:

The absence of a formal declaration of rights in China, said Confucian philosopher Chung-Shu Lo, did not signify “that the Chinese never claimed human rights or enjoyed the basic rights of man.” He explained

. . . the idea of human rights developed very early in China, and the right of the people to revolt against oppressive rulers was very early established. . . . A great Confucianist, Mencius (372 – 289 BC), strongly maintained that a government should work for the will of the people. He said: “People are of primary importance. The State is of less importance. The sovereign is of least importance.”

Clearly, the right to revolt against oppressors has been exercised a few times in China (and, much as the USA ignored the Philippines success in throwing off the yoke of Spanish imperialism in 1898, overlooked in other nations). In fact, it was quite possibly fairly widespread discontent against the corruption and excesses of the Kuomintang that helped the rise of the Communists in the late 1940s.

Be that as it may, as things stand now:

• China still holds to her claims to territory in the East and South China Seas, which predates the rise of Communism by several decades;
• most people want to “feel good”, and that often is interpreted as being part of something bigger than the individual, which is often interpreted as being part of a nation that is –depending on one’s personal inclinations (and, dare I say, spiritual evolution / emotional-intellectual maturity?) – interpreted as a progressive or a powerful nation. In China, the predominant interpretation is of a powerful nation (and, much as the Crusades still have an influence in West Asia, the devastation violently, forcibly and callously imposed by the Opium Wars may well be influencing that desire);
• China is modernising and expanding her military, particularly her navy;
• China is also expanding – quite aggressively – her use of soft power (notably, through the Belt and Road Initiative, but also influence on foreign media and expatriates), which is, to some extent, being acknowledged and resisted;
• China has a history which I read described as “the honey on the knife” – the more you lick the sweet honey, the sooner you get to the knife. I first came across that phrase in the context of Tibet, where China’s behaviour has been genocidal, but it also came to mind recently when China only refrained from calling in her loans to a debt-strapped Pacific Island nation in response to international concern.

As an Australian, do I fear China invading Australia?

No. Militarily, our extremely DRY, hot inland and north-west, and the hot and wet north and north-east, give us some of the advantages Russia has found when she has been invaded, and that is worth a division or three. Furthermore, Japan was being affected by the length of supply lines when invading Papua New Guinea in World War (part) Two, and – despite better transport nowadays – I think that would be an issue for most potential invaders. (I think there are things we could do better rather than rely solely on defence at a distance and buttering up powerful allies with obligations of debt, but that is a matter for another post, and will necessarily include the murky interaction between civil defence and the protection of  non-combatants civilians].)

China’s territorial ambitions are, in my opinion, still focused on Taiwan – which is a tragedy for those people there who want and deserve their independence as Taiwan, not as a receptacle for defeated has-beens. China is serious about that, which I’ve written about here.

A shooting war, however, is probably most likely to occur – in my uneducated opinion – between the USA and China, and that is largely due to the determination of the USA’s 45^th President to deliver – or try to do so – on his electoral promises around international trade / US jobs, combined with his interrelationship ineptness and proud unpredictability.

So what can Australia do? Well:

• Stand firm on matters of principle with China – don’t be aggressive about doing so, but neither be submissive: we have as much a right to hold to our opinions as China does – although we should work out a wording to use in response to China’s contention that less powerful nations shouldn’t have as much say as more powerful nations;
• Firmly, fairly, but inexorably counter China’s soft power in Australia and our allies / friends  neutral nations – which requires the use of constructive counter stories, just as a constructive counter stories are required against violent extremist propaganda;
• Stop hooking our defence solely to the USA. Although there are very strong personal, cultural (some of which I sigh about, some of which I appreciate :) ), and military ties between us and the USA, their weird politics means they could become inward focused and leave us in the lurch no matter how much their military or their people want to help us;
• Continue to build ties and interconnections and communication between individuals and groups in both nations: it won’t make war impossible, but it makes an accidental war through misunderstanding less likely;
• Change our economic ties. China is going green – the health effects of pollution from coal and other sources is something China has been fighting against for decades (I should know – I helped with water and wastewater treatment plants and studies to address that, mostly back in the 90s), so shift from exporting coal to exporting solar-generated energy (e.g., hydrogen, which I understand can be shipped as denser and safer ammonia gas, then reconverted to hydrogen gas), and move towards more value added, rather than raw products. Our education connections are flourishing: perhaps continue those, but in a way that counters Chinese soft power.

I’ve also read a few predictions that China (and Asia generally) will decline: I think they’re poorly founded (e.g., some are based on trends happening in Western nations, many overlook the work that China has done to, for instance, lift people out of poverty [some of stories colleagues of my age group similar who came from China are harrowing, and all overlook history), and the truth is:

(a) China is a major power now;

(b) China may “move up a few rungs” in terms of power;

(c) China will be here and powerful – to some degree – for some time to come.

So we have to work out how to exist together, whether there is another superpower or not. Ultimately, the people of China have the right to enjoy a good material quantity of life, security in all forms (especially with regards to climate change), and the quality of life that comes from respect for human rights. And therein is, I think, the greater issue than China’s increasing power: how do we make China a better, rather than a lesser, nation?

(Totalitarianism is not the answer, but neither is the USA’s version of capitalism – and military adventurism is not the lasting way to get there.)